It’s a radiant morning, and the zoo is filled with birds. Robins bathe in a waterfall. Pigeons peck at a discarded slice of pizza. Mallards circle around an artificial pond. Near a fence, strollers pause as chubby fingers point at the flamingos. These creatures from the Caribbean are sleeping—balanced on one leg, long necks twisted backward, bills nestled into cotton-candy feathers.

“Everybody loves the colorful ones,” says Sara Hallager, bird curator at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. “I happen to like brown ones.” Along the path hops a tiny wood thrush, the official bird of Washington, D.C. “See? A brown bird. But he’s got that spotted breast and that beautiful song.”

This past March, the zoo reopened its Bird House after a six-year renovation. Visitors can now wander through three indoor habitats. The first is filled with Delaware Bay shorebirds. The second is modeled after a prairie where ducks refuel during migrations. The third resembles a Latin American coffee farm. Orange-and-black Baltimore orioles are at home in that tropical habitat. “People in these parts might think, ‘It’s my Baltimore oriole,’” Hallager notes. “But in the winter, it lives in Central America and it’s someone else’s oriole.”

This is one reason people love birds: A baseball team in Maryland can be named for a species that winters in Nicaragua. Birds have never cared about the boundaries between North and South Korea, or East and West Berlin. Some of the farthest fliers migrate from Canada to Chile, Alaska to New Zealand.

The Bird House at the National Zoo is home to scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings and American yellow warblers. But Hallager makes sure to point out the brown kori bustards in the outdoor area. Visitors are missing out if they don’t stop to admire these ostrich-like birds from the African savanna, with herringbone-tweed necks and dotted underbellies. Their heads are especially endearing—a sloping mullet of feathers and a brow that gives them a perpetually studious expression.

“That’s my girl,” Hallager says proudly, pointing to one of the kori bustards. “She was born here. I hand-raised her. As soon as I walk by, she’ll come over.” For Hallager, who has been working with birds at the zoo since 1989, these feathered friends are like pets. The smaller birds, like the ones in the coffee farm exhibit, live five to eight years. But the larger birds outside can live to be 25 or 30. Parrots can reach their 80s or 90s.

At the edge of the outdoor pens, bird behaviorist Phung Luu introduces visitors to creatures they’d never be able to approach in the wild—vultures, ravens, macaws and cockatoos. He disappears briefly into a small tent and then emerges holding a nest full of white-throated magpie-jays. “They’re just a few weeks old, still very much babies,” he says, as the chicks squawk and climb on each other’s backs.

Luu and Hallager call these babies “ambassador birds,” hoping they’ll inspire visitors to protect bird life. That might mean drinking shade-grown coffee, which prevents the clear-cutting of forests. Or it might mean keeping cats indoors. “People say, ‘My Fluffy doesn’t kill birds,’” Hallager says. “Yes, he absolutely does.”

The final birds Luu brings out from the tent are white-faced owlets. No photograph or children’s book is adequate preparation for the feeling of holding one—the dark-edged feathers and prickle of little feet. Most astonishing is the feeling of staring into those perfectly round eyes, deep-blue pupils surrounded by saucers of bright orange. It’s oddly similar to the way a newborn human baby looks out at the world—a quiet, steady gaze loaded with mystery and intelligence. “Once people have that connection, they listen a bit more and they care a little bit more,” Luu says.

The talented wildlife photographers featured on these pages will attest to that. We asked them to send us exclusive images of their favorite birds, taken near their own homes. Pausing to look closely at a bird, to enjoy its song, is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to commune with nature. Birds are beautiful and varied, musical and free. And they’re everywhere.

Anna’s Hummingbird, Calypte anna

Photograph by Gretchen Kay Stuart

“I’ve always been enchanted by hummingbirds,” Stuart says. “Their tiny size and iridescent plumage make them seem as though they are born out of fairy tales.”

As otherworldly as these creatures are, they’re not hard to find in western U.S. suburbs. Set out a sugar-water feeder in your garden, and you’re likely to spot them. You might need to pay close attention: They’re only about four inches long and, like other hummingbird species, they move quickly. But the males in particular stand out because of their magenta heads, which shimmer in the sunlight. During courtship dances, the male can rise up as high as 130 feet before diving sharply toward the female.

When Stuart moved to the Oregon Coast, she was delighted to find that her landlord maintained feeders for several families of Anna’s hummingbirds. The property was surrounded by thick brush and flowering Pacific crab apple and Klamath plum trees. Hummingbirds abounded. “Observing and photographing the graceful yet fierce behavior of Anna’s hummingbirds became a ritual, bringing joy and serenity to my days,” she says.

Columbian Sharp-Tailed Grouse, Tympanuchus phasianellus columbianus

Photograph by Noppadol Paothong

If it looks like these two sharp-tailed grouses are taking part in an elaborate dance, they are. As females look on, the males point their tails upward, spread their wings, hold their heads low and stamp their feet in a stuttering pattern. These courtship demonstrations are so elaborately choreographed and perfectly synchronized that Native American groups have emulated them. To this day, the Northern Tutchone First Nations group of Yukon continues to perform a grouse dance.

The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse can be found in the north-central and western U.S. and parts of Canada. To get this image, Paothong showed up on a frigidly cold Wyoming morning before the birds arrived—around 5 a.m. He set up a photo blind, or camouflaged tent, away from the mating ground and waited expectantly for the dance to begin. “Working inside a photo blind provides very limited vision and mobility,” he says. The biggest challenge was keeping his fingers warm enough to work the equipment when this magic moment finally arrived.

Evening Grosbeak, Coccothraustes vespertinus

Photograph by Melissa Groo

The evening Grosbeak tends to hover north of Groo’s home in Central New York State. So she was delighted when a flock of them recently appeared outside her house. “When they roam further south in winter in search of food, I’ve been blessed with their presence, sometimes over months,” she says. “This past winter and into very early spring, I had a flock of up to 15 visiting my platform bird feeder daily, hoovering up black oil sunflower seeds.”

Seeds and berries are favorite food sources for these birds. In the summer, they also eat insects. While they breed in coniferous forests, their southern migrations don’t always take them to the same place, which makes their appearances somewhat unpredictable.

Groo made the most of the grosbeaks’ visit. To get this shot, she waited at her open upstairs window for two hours, training her lens on a sugar maple tree where the birds liked to perch. “It was very cold despite my layers of clothing,” she says, “but when I have my lens trained on birds like this, discomfort takes a back seat, and I can endure all kinds of things.”

Great Egret, Ardea alba

Photograph by Jak Wonderly

Wonderly was walking in downtown Santa Rosa when he saw a stark white bird with a five-foot wingspan flying overhead, carrying a stick. Another appeared, then another. “Following the birds and the sound of bird calls, I came to two large eucalyptus trees that are a rookery for egrets and herons,” Wonderly says. Construction in the late 1990s apparently disturbed their earlier breeding colony, so the birds established a new one—right in the middle of a boulevard.

In the late 1800s, great egrets were hunted nearly to extinction because their plumes were prized for ladies’ hats. The National Audubon Society helped save them, using the great egret as its logo. “They’re incredibly graceful, spectacular birds,” Wonderly says. “The chicks, however, emerge with green skin and spiky white feathers. They look like Muppets.” To save chicks that plop to the street in Santa Rosa, volunteers place straw to cushion their falls and scoop them up so they can be raised to adulthood. “International Bird Rescue has successfully released more than 100 egrets and herons in a given year,” he says, “all from this one area.”

Roadrunner, Geococcyx californianus

Photograph by Karine Aigner

When a male roadrunner courts a female, he may bring a gift: a dead lizard, a centipede, a dragonfly or a small bird. After holding out his offering, he proceeds to mate with the female. It’s an effective seduction tactic: Roadrunners mate for life.

The bird in this picture is a regular visitor to the South Texas ranch where Aigner teaches photography workshops. He’s known around the ranch as Sir Walter Camilo Meeplethorpe. For a while last year, he seemed forlorn. “Each day that summer, Sir Walter would hoo call,” she says—a sound not unlike the cooing of a dove. Sir Walter kept showing up at a half-built nest and calling out, a gift always in his mouth. Bird biologists suggested to Aigner that Sir Walter had lost his mate, and the unfinished nest seemed like an ominous sign.

Toward the end of summer, Aigner spotted a female roadrunner she’d never seen before. “And then I saw Sir Walter,” she says. “He ran through the patio and stopped in front of me.” The female seemed skittish at first. “Then one day, I walked out the door and they were mating,” says Aigner. “I was nothing less than ecstatic.”

Piping Plover, Charadrius melodus

Photograph by Michael Milicia

Walking along a beach in the eastern United States, you might spot one of these small, round birds in the midst of its signature foot-trembling maneuver. Piping plovers will dash along the shore and then suddenly stop and tap the sand with one foot. The leading theory holds that the goal of all this stomping is to startle insects and other prey, making them easier to detect and catch.

The piping plover is an endangered species, almost gone from the Great Lakes region where it once thrived. If you’re lucky enough to spot one on the Atlantic Coast, you’ll have a good shot at getting a picture, since these birds frequent busy beaches and tend to be well-acclimated to humans. But to get a spectacular shot like this one, says Milicia, it helps to be lying down. “I approach the birds on foot until I am about twice the distance that I want to be and still far short of their fear circle,” he says. “I then lie down and slowly belly crawl to get closer. Most of the time the birds are unbothered by this approach, but if they are reacting to my presence, I move on.”

Northern Pygmy-Owl, Glaucidium gnoma

Photograph by Gerrit Vyn

In Western Oregon where Vyn lives, the tooting of the northern pygmy-owl is the sound of spring. “Even when you don’t see them, while hiking through the forest or sitting in a lush patch of sword ferns on the forest floor and looking up into the canopy, just knowing they are somewhere up there, watching, deepens the experience and magic of place,” he says.

Vyn spent ten days waiting near the nest cavity in this tree, hoping for owlets to emerge. Watching the mother owl and her mate deliver food to the chicks, he saw an astonishing range of prey species. “In the predawn hours, moths were commonly delivered, and as the day progressed there was a steady of stream of small mammals and birds.” Mice and voles were often on the menu, as were birds ranging from the tiny Wilson’s warbler to the much larger black-headed grosbeak. Although these owls aren’t much bigger than house sparrows, they can prey on species up to three times their size.

Vyn’s advice to aspiring bird photographers is to study their habits and schedules: “Become a better naturalist—know birds better.”

Roseate Spoonbill, Platalea ajaja

Photograph by Mac Stone

When Stone was a biologist with the National Audubon Society, he used to love watching a spoonbill chick push out of its shell. “It used the only tool it had: a blunt pink spoon,” he says. The distinctive bill would prove to be useful as the chick grew to scoop up crustaceans and fish.

Naturalists have fun describing these birds. “The spoonbill exhibits paradoxical glamour and drollery,” wrote Robert Porter Allen in 1942. The Audubon Society’s website describes it in the words of contemporary field guide author Kenn Kaufman: “gorgeous at a distance and bizarre up close.” After being almost exterminated by plume hunters in the late 1800s, roseate spoonbills have made a remarkable (though incomplete) comeback. They’re usually found along the Gulf Coast and farther south, but with sea-level rise impacting their fishing grounds, they’ve been sighted farther north—in Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, New York, and even as far as Michigan and Connecticut.

California Condor, Gymnogyps californianus

Photograph by Joshua Asel

For anyone who considers the California condor an unsightly bird, Asel suggests watching them at sunset. “Their heads and crops can reflect the entire range, from yellow to pink to crimson,” he says. “You can hear the wind flow past their massive wingtips, almost like the sound of dozens of swords simultaneously swinging through the air.”

California condors are the largest bird species in North America. They are critically endangered, with just 275 free-flying in California, Utah, Arizona and Baja California. They serve the environment by cleaning up animal carcasses, a role they’ve played since the days of woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

“If you’re lucky enough to have one of these flying giants soar right past you and look you right in the eyes, you can immediately sense their undeniable intelligence,” says Asel, who has spent the better part of a decade working for their conservation. “And I don’t mean they look at you in some general way. They look directly into your eyes.”

Green Heron, Butorides virescens

Photograph by Steve Jessmore

“I relate to these birds because they can be so still, patient and quiet as they hunt by themselves,” Jessmore says. “I try to emulate their stillness in order to photograph them.”

All U.S. range maps include migration, breeding and non-breeding, and year-round areas; Sources: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; ResearchGate.net; Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

The prestigious Bird Photographer of the Year competition this year attracted over 20,000 entries, all hoping for the $6,327 / £5,000 / AU$9,777 grand prize. The winner, announced today, was Jack Zhi, from the USA, who captured a dramatic image of a high-speed chase between a Peregrine Falcon protecting its young from a large Brown Pelican.

• Check the best lenses for bird photography

“For four years, I attempted to capture the rare sight of the female falcon attacking large brown pelicans with incredible speed and agility,” says Zhi. “I love the eyes of the pelican in this image – surprised and scared. The action was fast, and over in the blink of an eye. But I’ll remember that moment forever.” 

Zhi’s winning shot was taken using a Sony A9 II with an FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS supertelephoto. The exposure was 1/4000sec at f/6.3, ISO1000.

The Bird Behavior category was very competitive too – Qiuqing Mu’s lovely owls in ‘A Mother’s Love’, the bronze winner, could easily have won on another day. Mu says “A Great Grey Owl adult was hunting in a wheat field, and a juvenile flew to the edge of the field to be fed. Suddenly, the parent caught some prey. I quickly pressed the shutter and captured a heartwarming moment between the parent and the next generation.”

The competition’s Young Bird Photographer of the Year prize is divided into three categories – 11 and under, 12-14, and 15-17 – and this year’s overall winner was Anton Trexler of Germany who’s silhouetted Blackbird singing in the dead of night conveys atmosphere.

Bird Photographer of the Year has conservation at its heart. This year the competition made that clear in two ways. Firstly it donated the same amount as the main prize to partner charity Birds on the Brink – which provides vital funding to grass-roots bird conservation projects around the world. Secondly, it has a conservation category, in which some dramatic and challenging images are included like the winning image by Ewan Heath-Flynn of a hunter holding a (legally killed) bird.

“Each image is not merely a testament to the immense talent of our photographers, but a poignant reminder of the breathtaking beauty of birds,” says Will Nicholls, Director of Bird Photographer of the Year. “The astonishing calibre of these photographs underscores a vital message: let us champion the cause of conservation, so that future generations can marvel at the real-life inspirations behind these extraordinary images.”

Mercifully there is a lighter side too! The Comedy Bird Photo category is always fun, and this year the top two prize winners had a very fishy theme! Winner Antonio Aguti, of and in Italy and Levi Fitze of Switzerland shooting in the Falklands caught situations with too much and too little fish! 

The winner of the bird portrait category, Nicolas Reusens of Spain, said of his trip into the tropical Mashpi Amagusa Reserve “I was excited to spot the rare Glistening-green Tanager. After hours of waiting, I saw the vivid-green bird on a perfect heart-shaped leaf. Its shimmering feathers reflected a dazzling array of colours. I captured every detail, grateful for this magical moment amid the lush jungle backdrop.

One thing the categories guarantee is variety. The runner up in ‘Bird in Flight’, by Paul Mckenzie of Ireland was shot from the open door of a small plane looking down on Lesser Flamingos in flight over a vast and concentrated bloom of blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria), their staple food source. The category winner, incidentally, was chosen as the book cover.

Photographers competed in 8 different categories in the adult competition: Best Portrait, Birds in the Environment, Bird Behaviour, Birds in Flight, Black and White, Urban Birds, Conservation (Single Image), and Comedy Bird Photo. There was also a Conservation Award, Portfolio Award, and Video Award.

The 2024 competition is now open for entries at birdpoty.com, while publisher William Collins is offering the collection in the form of a hardback coffee-table book which will be available soon in the UK, and in a few months in the USA.

You might be interested in our guide to the best bird feeder cameras and the best cameras for wildlife photography. There’s also the debate about using a full frame or cropped sensor for bird photography!

While “performers” may be the most appropriate description of the group, summarising what they do isn’t a simple task because of the sheer breadth of their talents. From fire-breathing and acrobatics, to dance, clowning, juggling, contortion and drumming, their talents are many, and they can often be found performing at all sorts of events and spaces, from cruise ships, hotels, festivals and carnivals, circuses, birthday parties. To capture the gasp-inducing energy, action and magic of their live performances, when with the band Tom created a documentary – Dragon Boys. But for the adjoining photographic element Men on Fire, he wanted to create contrast, instead lensing in on “the calmer moments between the action” away from the audiences, using “considered portraiture” to capture the essence of each member.

While Accra is “a very busy place”, Tom explains that the group had their secret spots, calm places to get away from the bustling city, practice and hang out. “It definitely helped that when the sun is rising or setting on Ghana, there’s nowhere more beautiful,” Tom adds. With such enigmatic figures and a landscape to match, Tom had clear intentions; “I wanted to mythologise them and portray the sense of heroism and mystery they inspire in the local kids.”

The image that fulfils this goal in its entirety is one of Prince on a horse, fire stick in hand, the onset of dusk enveloping the beach he rides down. With Prince turned to the camera with a calm authority and the low light giving the shot a hazy, dream-like quality, the scene has a breathtaking grandeur about it. But alongside such grandeur the quieter, more simple shots also resonate with Tom. In one group shot at the training-ground-cum-club-house, the camera centres on the face of Emmanuel, his face cocked to the side slightly in an offhand manner. While in their costumes and body paint, this in between moments exudes calm and a comfortable kinship. “They’re all such professionals, they’re always pulling amazing poses and looking like superheroes,” Tom says, “but this was a more relaxed moment.”

As well as hoping that his documentary and photo series may help the group get more gigs, exposure, and a chance to share their skills far and wide, Tom also hopes that they will bring more attention to the unique culture and heritage of Ghana. “It’s definitely stepped further into the international consciousness and I hope that continues,” he says. “If this inspires someone to read up on what’s happening in Ghana these days or even visit there, that’s a pretty good result.”

In the coming year, Apple’s Vision Pro is poised to make a splash in the market, potentially reshaping our perception of virtual reality. Featuring a cutting-edge 3D camera for snapping spatial photos and videos, the Vision Pro promises to bring us closer to the futuristic worlds seen in sci-fi movies. What’s more, if the latest rumor is to be believed, the Vision Pro might not be the only Apple device dabbling in the world of 3D capture. A recent leak, uncovered by MacRumors, hints at Apple’s potential development of an iPhone Ultra featuring a 3D camera. This future iPhone Ultra could have the capability to capture spatial photos and videos designed for viewing on Apple’s Vision Pro headset. The rumor goes as far as to suggest that this innovation will “lead the market to rethink what kind of photos and videos a mobile phone should take.”However, don’t hold your breath just yet – if this pans out, we’ll likely have to wait a long time for this iPhone Ultra model. As for the exact release date, well, that’s still up in the air, especially considering it’s all based on a single leak. We’ll have to wait and see, possibly in 2024 or beyond. One thing we can be quite sure of is that if the rumor becomes a reality, you’d definitely need a Vision Pro headset to enjoy those spatial photos and videos.

Let’s dive into the topic of spatial photography for a moment

Spatial photography, often referred to as 3D photography, is a technique that captures images in a way that conveys depth and a three-dimensional sense of space. It typically involves taking multiple photos from slightly different angles or using specialized cameras to create a stereoscopic effect. It’s commonly used in virtual and augmented reality and 3D modeling. At this year’s WWDC 2023, Apple dropped the idea of spatial photos and videos, which will let people relive cherished moments as if they are there again (Black Mirror, much?). With the Apple Vision Pro headset, you can rewatch those moments and even capture new ones.

 

Image Credit–Apple

The Apple Vision Pro headset is loaded with sensors on the outside. Some of these sensors keep track of how far away things are in front of you (depth maps), and others are cameras that capture what you see. Now, when it comes to spatial photos and videos, they rely on having multiple cameras spaced apart just right. This setup helps create that 3D effect and depth perception in the images and videos you capture.

To make spatial photography happen on a future iPhone Ultra, Apple would have to stick an extra sensor on the back. This extra sensor has to be the right distance (or similar to the distance between your eyes) from the other cameras to give that 3D effect. But here’s the catch: doing this on a smartphone isn’t a walk in the park. So, while spatial photos and videos sound cool, we’re not sure if it’s doable on a phone just yet.

And let’s keep in mind that the iPhone Ultra is still just a rumor. It might be the fanciest option for the iPhone 16 lineup next year, but there’s no official word that Apple is actually working on it. So, it’s a bit of a mystery right now.